The One Inside
by IceyIarthy
Summary: Anakin has been having strange dreams all his life of a mysterious girl who doesn't age. In a conversation with Luke, Anakin discovers he isn't the only one.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, or any of the characters from it. I think Star Wars is a great story, which has been contributed to by many people, making a great little story-universe, and I wanted to add in m own little sector. Nikki, in all her coolness, is mine, so is the originallity of this story. And that's about it.  
  
Prologue-  
  
He was dreaming again. He new he was dreaming, subconsiously, he could wake up at any point he wanted by acknolleging the fact. But he didn't want to wake up. He wanted to know who she was. She was kind of pretty, he guessed. She looked alot like his sister and his mother. He couldn't explain how he made that connection, but it was there.  
  
Anakin Solo wandered through his dream-world, the millions of inter-lacing black silk curtains creating a Labyrinth for him. He kept walking, pushing them aside. He couldn't sense her, as she wasn't real, or if she was real, she wasn't anywhere nearby. Not in the real universe, anyway, but in his dream world, she exsisted  
  
Anakin pushed another curtain aside. Now he was standing on the top of a building on Coruscant. She was there, sitting on the railing around the building, brushing her hip-lenth hair. He didn't make a sound, he was too afraid he'd startle her, and make herself fall. The buildings of Coruscant were very tall, and this one was no exception.  
  
She stopped brushing her hair. She let the hair brush slip from her hand, obviously on purpose, then gracefully slipped from the edge. She hadn't even looked at him.  
  
Anakin rushed out towards the railing in a futile attempt to save her. He leaned over the railing, and looked straight down. There was a very small, though a little wide, balcony right underneath where she had jumped from, and an open door into the building. He caught a glimpse of a shadow moving inside. He was about to go back to where ever it was he came from, but before he could turn around, she leaned out of the doorway, and for the first time ever, she spoke.  
  
"Are you coming along, or not?"  
  
It was a simple, flat-out question, and yet it shocked Anakin as much as if she had just shown him a Mooka dancing to Ishi Tibb. Usually these dreams, and most of his other dreams, had no sound.  
  
"Yeah," Anakin answered timidly, "Sure." He jumped over the railing, very carefully, and landing on the balcony. He was about to follow her inside, and ask her every question he could think of asking, but out of nowhere a speeder was hovering behind him, with a very loud siren going off.  
  
Anakin woke up quickly, and shut off the alarm on his bedside table. She had spoken. That girl never spoke. Ever. He knew she had been in his dreams for a very long time. Ever since he could remember, somewhere, in the background, there she was. Always the same age, just barely too young to be called an adult, though her face gave her soul's age away. And those eyes that saw right through you. She knew everything about you, but you were never embarressed by it. She just understood. There was no other way to put it. Yet somehow, from her posture, probably, not everything of her was at peace with the universe. An eternal shadow haunted her. 


	2. How did you know?

Chapter One  
  
Anakin walked through the halls of the Massassi Temple, just thinking quietly to himself. He stopped walking suddenly, and brought himself back to attention. He looked around to remember where he was. He had stopped right in front of Luke's office. Anakin shook himself, and kept walking.  
  
*()*()*()*  
  
Luke sat in his office talking to one of his students. The poor kid was having a difficult time adjusting. She hadn't been away from her parents for this long before, and was the worse for it. He didn't want to send her home, not even for a little while, but that was just something that had to happen before she got physically ill again.  
  
"I understand. It can be very hard being this far away. I'll tell you what, one week from now you can go see your parents for another week, then come back here, and keep training. Then we'll see if you can go for longer without them afterward, and get you used to being without them."  
  
The girl's mood brightened visibly, which was a good sign, as she had gotten very pale, and at lost at least 5 pounds in weight since she had arrived.  
  
After she had left, Luke sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. He wondered for a moment if he should've let Mara handle that. Women tend to be more emotional then men naturally, but then again, Mara had been taken from her parents at the age of five, and new nothing at all about seperation anxiety.  
  
Luke felt a familiar presence pass through the hall. He could tell without even thinking about it that it was Anakin. Anakin with quite a mindfull, which he wasn't bothering to hide. In any version of boarding-school, such as this one, privacy was valued. Knowing that Anakin didn't bother to hide his thoughts, even remotely, like putting a 'Do not disturb' or 'stay out' sign on a door, let alone locking it, he didn't feel too guilty taking a quick look at what was on his nephew's mind.  
  
Luke's eyes snapped open. How did Anakin know about her? And who was she, anyway?  
  
Anakin stopped outside the door for a moment. He must've sensed Luke's suprise. He started to walk away again.  
  
Luke practically jumped out of his chair and opened the door in a hurry, leaning out. "Anakin?"  
  
*()*()*()*  
  
Anakin turned around suddenly. "Yeah?"  
  
Luke was leaning out of his office doorway the same as that girl had done in his dream. "Could I have a word with you for a moment?"  
  
"Sure." Anakin stepped into Luke's office. "What about?"  
  
"You've sure got alot of things bouncing around in your head. You were thinking pretty loudly a moment ago. It's a wonder the whole school isn't asking who she is."  
  
Anakin thought for a moment. No, he hadn't been hiding his thoughts at all. "Well, good thing they're not, I wouldn't know what to tell them. I've never seen her in real life, only in dreams. I don't even know if she's real."  
  
Luke nodded. "Real life is what you make of it, Anakin. But I'll tell you this much, she does exsist. Not just in dreams, though that's the only way I ever remember seeing her, but she is real."  
  
"How do you know she is, if you've only seen her in dreams?"  
  
"Because I can remember when I was a very small child, dreaming, of course, I must've been about three years old, asking her why she and Ben hadn't visited since I had gone to live with my aunt and uncle Lars."  
  
Anakin thought for a moment. "Since you had gone to live with them? I thought you lived with them your whole life?"  
  
"I did. Or, I thought I did. Untill reccently, when I dug that out of my mind. I dream about her on a regular basis, never could figure it out. You know, she has never answered me, ever."  
  
"If she's real, why doesn't she age?"  
  
Luke shrugged. "I don't know." 


	3. I'm a message in a lightsaber, baby(Kidd...

Chapter Two  
  
Mara sparred with one of the students on the landing pad between the temple and the jungles of Yavin 4. "That's better, but you're not going fast enough! You're leaving your ribs wide open!"  
  
She reached out when the boy was in mid-turn and poked him in the ribs for emphasis. His natural reflex was to bring his arm down, slicing the top end off of Mara's lightsaber. The one Luke had given her when she finally stopped trying to kill him. The boy stared at her hand, silently waiting to see if she was alright, of if he had caught her fingers with the lightsaber.  
  
"Are you okay?" She asked him.  
  
"Yeah, are you? I didn't hurt your hand, did I?"  
  
"No, I'm fine." she held the lightsaber a little ways away from her, making sure not to point it at anyone in case it exploded. She motioned one of the kids waiting for a turn practicing in to the decided 'ring' and took the damaged lightsaber inside. She was relatively sure that if it hadn't blown by now, it wasn't going to, but she just wanted to make sure. She hadn't built her own yet, but Luke had, after he'd lost this one.  
  
She knocked lightly on the door to Luke's office before letting herself in. He was sitting and talking to Anakin. He looked up and imediately saw the damaged lightsaber in her hand. "Everyone alright?"  
  
"Yeah, it just killed our little heirloom, though." she handed him what what left of it.  
  
"Ouch." Luke shook out the contents of the metal casing to make sure it wasn't going to malfunction, dumping all off them out of his desk. As everyone was taught before even picking up a lightsaber, never look into a malfunctioning one, at the very least, you could lose an eye.  
  
There were all your standard lightsaber parts, the focusing lens, the crystal, the power-unit, and the wires to the switch, but among them was a small silver message cube.  
  
Luke picked it up. What was a message cube doing inside a lightsaber? inside his father's old lightsaber? He turned it over, and switched it on.   
  
A grainy hologram of Obi-Wan, younger than Luke had ever seen him, appeared. "Luke, one of the greatest Jedi ever told me that someday you would find this. I don't know when that is, or how you came to find this message, but this is important! You must know of Vader's palace by now, it is imperitive that you go there. There is a hidden room, just next to Vader's personal suite. It's lock is coded genetically, but you have enough of.. your father's genes to open it. You'll know what to do, but please hurry! May the force be with you, and may it never fail!"  
  
The image flickered away, and Luke was sure he heard Yoda's voice in the background. He looked up from the silver cube in his artificial hand. He had almost forgotten Mara and Anakin were in the room.  
  
"This has something to do with what you two were talking about before I came in, doesn't it?" Mara asked, breaking the silence.  
  
"Why do you say that?" Luke turned to her.  
  
"It just... seems that way. What were you two talking about, anyway?" her eyes went back and forth between the two.  
  
"Nothing important, really." Anakin said. Mara could tell it was bothering him, but didn' press any further.  
  
"Right, well, I have to go watch those kids in case Mylo has another accident." Mara threw over her shoulder as she left.  
  
"She didn't believe that, you know."  
  
"I didn't expect her to."  
  
Luke was silent for a moment. "Looks like I've got some travelling to do. Want to come along?"  
  
Anakin thought back to his dream. 'Are you coming along, or not?'  
  
He had told her yes. But what if she was luring him into a trap? But hadn't Obi-Wan's message just said...? What had Obi-Wan meant? 'Are you coming along, or not, Anakin?'  
  
Anakin snapped back to reallity. "Sorry, what was that?"  
  
"I asked, are you coming with, or staying here?"  
  
"Oh... Going. Definately going." 


	4. Do not open 'til Christmas

(Wow, only two reviews, but haunting? Thanks! I try! If you are looking for more of the nice drama in the first parts, I promise, you should love this chapter!  
IceyIarthy)  
_______________  
  
Chapter 3  
  
Anakin packed a few flightsuits into an over-night bag, as he had no idea how long this would take. He walked down to the landing pad outside, passing his sister's friend in the hall.  
  
"Hi, Lusa!" he flashed her a warm smile. He made a habit of doing that as much as possible, to make himself into a little reminder that not all humans were out to hurt her.  
  
"Hello, Anakin." the centaur girl replied with a small smile. She was starting to find him amusing, in a funny little boy way.  
  
Anakin continued walking, into the ship, and soon they were off.  
  
*()*()*()*  
  
Once inside Bast Castle, Vader's palace on the planet Vjun, it seemed all the difficult parts of the trip were over. Both Luke and Anakin had been there before, and knew a little of their way around. They found their way to Vader's old private chambers.  
  
Luke had stopped responding to Anakin's whispered chitchat a while ago. Anakin didn't usually whisper, but the enormity of Bast castle, and the silence combined made him feel dwarfed by comparison.  
  
Luke walked as if he was in a trance, Anakin noticed. He followed his uncle into Vader's rooms. "Didn't Obi-Wan's message say it was 'next to' Vader's rooms? Why are we in here?"  
  
"The door is in this wall." Luke answered without thinking. Anakin caught flashes of times past, of a tall man, sensing him more than seeing him, opening a hidden door in the wall, and going inside. His soul was so dark, but he had an obvious speck of light within the very depths, which seemed to grow slightly when he went inside.  
  
Anakin shook his head, blinking away the vision. Luke studied the wall carefully, still in his trance-like state of heavy concentration. Anakin picked up a book sitting on a table nearby. It was burried under a blanket of dust. He knew that some people still wrote, by hand, in artificial-paper books. His mother had told him about the journal she had kept as a young girl on Alderaan. He wondered for a moment if it didn't run in the family as he flipped a few pages.  
  
He didn't notice Luke put his hand up on the wall and press in, hard. He jumped a little and dropped the book back down on the table when a door slid open behind him.  
  
He slipped the journal into a large pocket of his flightsuit, and followed Luke into the hidden room.  
  
When Luke stepped to the side, after entering, Anakin felt like he had been hit with a brick.  
  
It was a very dark room, except for a single sky-light, letting a large pillar of golden light in, creating a sort of shrine around a carved-out statue of black carbonite.  
  
A statue of the girl in his dreams. Anakin stopped moving for a moment as Luke circled the pillar of light. She was in an almost drop-knee postition on a knee-height base, looking up, her face tilted into the light with her eyes closed. Her hair fell out behind her. He looked closer. The expression on her face was one of complete innocence.  
  
He looked down at the sloping base of the statue. Written in the carbonite, barely visible, were some words. Luke brushed settled dust out of the lettering, and read it outloud, just loud enough for Anakin to hear it too.  
  
"The Angel I Could not Destroy" it was very obviously his uncle speaking, but the words burned in Anakin's ears. He could feel past shadows of the tall man with the dark soul wandering around in the chamber. The man left a vapor-trail with every movement, and was at many places at once. Eventually the images all faded out, and only one remained. This one walked slowly over to the statue, and sat down on the base of it, and placed a neclace around the neck of the statue. He touched the girl's cheek and waited a while, speaking to her. Anakin couldn't hear his words, but his voice seemed so deep and soothing. The man turned around, and slowly walked out of the room, and closed the door for what Anakin knew, was the last time.  
  
He turned back around, having watched he vision of the man leaving. He was still very much in tune with the force, and could see what wasn't there before. There was a pale glow coming from the statue. Not just a trick of the light, which was supposed to create that effect, but the same glow that came from all living creatures, and was also coming from Luke.  
  
"Uncle Luke..." Anakin trailed off, trying to keep his eyes the way they were focused. Luke turned around.  
  
"She's... Inside..!" 


	5. Jedi Moving, we might break your plates,...

(Wow, four reviews, and all of them good! I can honestly say I have gotten no flames whatsoever yet! Not that I want any, in case you were wondering. BTW, as I've explained to someone, this may not follow the books/movies exactly, but thank goodness for 'creative liecense.')  
  
Chapter 4  
  
Luke looked at the statue. His nephew was right. There was someone inside. His mind kept flashing back to when Han, Anakin's father, had been frozen in carbonite. He remembered something Lando had told him a few years ago, when it had been brought up.  
  
'You were meant to be put into carbonite. Vader only wanted to test the process on Han to make sure it wouldn't kill you.' his words echoed in Luke's mind.  
  
If Vader wanted to test it on Han to make sure it wouldn't be fatal, then what if he was also testing it to see if someone could be brought back from the freezing. More specifically, her.  
  
Anakin read the thoughts Luke was almost thinking aloud. "So what do we do now? I mean, we're not just going to leave her here... are we?"  
  
Luke was silent, though Anakin knew he had heard.  
  
"Uncle Luke, we can't just leave her like this."  
  
Luke stood up, "You're right, though I really don't know what to do. I suppose we have to take her out of the carbonite, but we don't exactly have any medical equitment with us, other than emergency first-aid things in our packs. Bringing her out of the carbonite could kill her."  
  
"Well, what if we take the whole block of carbonite? If someone could bring this in here, than we ought to be able to get it out."  
  
"Why didn't I think of that?"  
  
*()*()*()*  
  
After *carefully* manuvering the block of carbonite out of the room, out of the castle, and down the hundreds of flights of stairs, and finally stopping when they got the block into the cargo hold of the ship, Anakin thanked the force that the wheather had held good as long as it had. It was pouring down sleet outside, but inside they were safe from the storm.  
  
"So are we going to take her to Coruscant, or what?" Anakin asked.  
  
"Actually, I think we should go back to the academy. We've got pretty good medical equitment there. We have to have it, training can get dangerous at times."  
  
"But, why the academy?"  
  
"Anakin, what's that clipped to her belt?"  
  
"A blaster?"  
  
"No, behind that."  
  
Anakin took a step around, "Oh. But just because she has a lightsaber doesn't make her a Jedi."  
  
"How else do you think she would wind up in a block of carbonite, in Vader's castle, and somehow getting into the dreams of people hundred of light-years away?"  
  
"Oh."  
  
"My best guess would be to take her back to the academy, bring her out, and then see what she has to say."  
  
Anakin and Luke settled into the cockpit. During the time it took to get back to Yavin 4, Anakin amused himself by reading the journal he had picked up. Who wouldn't want to know the secret thoughts of a supposed mad-man? 


	6. Coming out of the closet, or at least go...

(Well, everyone wants to know more, so I guess I'll have to figure out some way of stalling any important parts. LOL. This was gonna be two chapters, but the first part wasn't long enough for me to call it a chapter. BTW, it's not Padme, and in case anyone forgot, or hasn't read Timothy Zahn's books, Myrkr is the planet where they have those critters that block the force. Oh yeah, and according to 'Vision of the Past,' and the 'New Jedi Order,' at this point in time, Luke and Mara are married.)  
  
Chapter 5  
  
Anakin sat down in the tiny cockpit of the ship, next to Luke, and read his grandfather's journal.  
  
Luke glanced over at Anakin. "What's that?"  
  
"Vader's journal. Or one of them, actually."  
  
Luke looked at him quizically.  
  
"What? He's dead, and I'm family. It can't count as stealing, or anything."  
  
Luke shrugged and turned back to the controls.  
  
"Hey, listen to this. 'I have finally found Nikki. She was given growth-enhancers all her life, to keep me from finding her. I would've been looking for an eight year-old child, but I found a young lady instead. I've taken her to Halmasqu Intstitute on Myrkr to keep her confined and at the same time hidden from the Jedi Council. The Jedi Council is failing, but they believe she can save them. They believed the same of me.  
  
"'They taught her to hate me, and she does, though somewhere in her deepest memories, she does remember my former self. She hates me, but she does not fear me.' I wonder who Nikki is." Anakin mused as he turned the page to the next entry.  
  
"'I have tried everything I can think of to turn Nikki, but I've made no progress. Her hate for the dark side is almost as strong as her power. With that much hate for anything, you would think the girl would be easily turned, but her heart is too pure. I don't know what to do with her, as I'm sure there is no way to turn her.  
  
"'I've killed many people, and I've had many people killed, but never like this. This isn't something I want to happen. The only way I can think of to put how I'm feeling is that I had a pet. Someone stole that pet, and taught that pet to attack. Now that I have my pet back, it will only attack me. I loved Nikki, and would never have hurt her, but she leaves me no choice.   
  
"'I will continue my efforts, and if I can't even make her be at least civil towards me, then the end of the year will be the end. I will have to kill my pet. And then I will kill the one who taught her to attack. I will kill Obi-Wan.'"  
  
Luke had heard all of it. He sat silently for a moment. "What do you want to bet that Nikki is the girl in the statue?"  
  
"I know," Anakin said, "But why would he be running around looking for an eight year old, anyway? What would he care about some little girl?"  
  
*()*()*()*  
  
After Luke and Anakin had arived back at the Jedi acadame, long after lights-out, Luke, Anakin, and Mara brought the statue into one of the unused rooms, right next to the medical facillities.  
  
"So, you found this statue in Vader's fortress, and it's got a person inside, and you want to bring her out, because Obi-Wan told you to? I hope I'm not the only person who thinks this is funny." Mara joked.  
  
Luke shook his head with a small smile. It was a bit odd. But then again, wasn't life? "We should probably wait til morning to do this. I guess we can throw a tarp or something over the statue in case anyone comes in here. I don't think it's very likely anyone will, though."  
  
Luke went to the storage closet on the lower floor, as Anakin and Mara both headed off to their respective rooms. The light in the large closet had gone out. Luke stepped inside, scanning the shelves, when the door swung closed. Luke ignored it, as that door's hinges were slightly off-kilter, and the door had a tendancy to do that. He grabbed a tarp off of a shelf, and turned around to leave. He was about to open the door, when something from the past, his past, hit him like a sack of rocks.  
  
It was her, the girl in the statue. He was only a very small child. He clung to her shoulder, looking every which way to try to see what was happening. Everything was blurred, with her running, and with time. She turned a corner in a hall, in a building or a ship, he couldn't tell. She stopped abruptly, and leaned on the wall for support as she opened a door to a different closet, in a different place and time.  
  
She put him down inside, on a pile of blankets on the floor, taking one off the top of the stack before setting him down. He wasn't happy with this descision, he was scared, and wanted to be held.  
  
"No, Luke, don't cry!" She whispered loudly. "If you cry, they'll hear you, and they'll come and take you." She put her hand on the side of his head. "Just go to sleep. You'll feel better after a nap, and I'll be right back here when you wake up."  
  
He knew she wasn't coming back, ever, yet he had no choice but to do as she said. As he drifted off, he could feel her throw the now un-folded blanket over him. She had never pulled a blanket all the way over his head before, but he was too sleepy to pull it down to his chin. The cool black shadow of rest swept over him, promising him dreams every child has, though he could feel that there was a nightmare. The nightmare was in his waking life. The nightmare *was* his waking life.  
  
Luke stood perfectly still as his real life, the here and now, came back. He took his hand off of the door-knob, and stepped back quickly. He shook his head, after a moment, and then left, noting everything he could remember about what he had just seen, writing it all down in his memory. It felt strange, now, with nothing happening, to go back up stairs, and throw a tarp over the statue of the girl, seeing what he had just seen. He decided not to think about it any more tonight, and went back to his and Mara's rooms to get some sleep. 


	7. Luke.. You're not my father.

(Okay everybody, here's your next chapter, but I'll warn you, these may start coming few and far apart, as if I don't have my driver's license by next month, I will lose my permission to hang out with my 'Trekkie Crew,' and yes, I just now realize what a bad pun that made. Beware! This chapter will either be very good, or very bad. I don't know which yet because I haven't written it yet. I've done an ultra-dramatic scene for Luke, now it's Anakin's turn, and just for sheer horror, I think it should probably be rated more than PG-13, but I don't think it needs an R, so I'll leave as is. Just remember, it's a dream! Not real. Actually, I've had the idea of Anakin's dream sequence in my mind for several years, but I couldn't think what to apply it to.)  
  
Chapter 6  
  
There it was again. The same dreading feeling he had gotten bits of at Vader's fortress. The room he stood in, in his dream, was so wide, and so tall, that in the darkness he stood in he could see neither the walls nor ceiling. All there was, was the dimly visable floor, and darkness. He held his hand up to see if he could see it. Everything was so grey.  
  
He felt, more than heard, footsteps behind him. He turned around only to realize he didn't know where they were coming from, as the chamber echoed so much.  
  
There was a movement from what was now behind him. He turned around again, his eyes scanning.  
  
The girl stepped out of the dark shadow that filled the room. Her hair had been pulled into a loose twist, strands of it falling out around her shoulders. She wore a long purple gown. Her face had been painted like that of a Nabonian ceramic doll his sister had once owned. Her face was an unnatural white, of some gloss-like paint. There was a briliant green stem drawn diagonally across her face, with a large rose bloom on one eye. The petals of the picture of the rose bloom sparkled with glitter-outlines.  
  
He reached up one hand to see if she was real. As his hand got closer to her face she didn't shy away, she didn't move. He very lightly felt his fingers tap her cheek. Out of nowhere, long breaking cracks developed on her face where he had touched her. They grew and branched, and spread, like glass put under too much pressure, leaking thick red blood. All at once she fell apart, in paper-thin glass pieces onto the floor, spilling gallons of blood in a circle of black on the grey floor in the great darkness.  
  
As the blood spread, the pieces of glass in the puddle made it look more and more familiar. Anakin couldn't figure out what shape it was taking until there was no mistaking it. It was the mask and helmet of Darth Vader, drawn up in her blood.  
  
Anakin woke, horrified at the image he had just seen.  
  
*()*()*()*  
  
In the morning, after breakfast, Luke, Mara and Anakin all came back to the storage room. Anakin pulled the tarp off of the carbonite statue.  
  
Mara had some first-aid things set up. Luke walked around to the back of the statue, where he had noticed previously there was a control panel.  
  
The panel was relatively simple to understand. He hit a few buttons.  
  
The black carbonite began to evaporate. It very slowly disappeared, revealing all of the girl's color. Her clothes were blue, her fingernails painted pale pink, and she had full, dark pink lips. Her skin was pale-cream colored. Anakin thought how much she looked like his mother.  
  
He had expected the girl to fall once the carbonite was gone, but it wasn't what was holding her up. Luke stepped up onto the large block of carbonite the statue had been affixed to. He very carefully lifted, and shifted her off of a metal frame that had been holding her up. He picked her up, once she was clear of the frame, and stepped down. Anakin could hear her muttering something, and trying to see Luke's face. Anakin's father had told him that when he came out of the carbonite he was in, he couldn't see. Luke spoke quietly, trying to calm her, though she showed no signs of being afraid or panicked whatsoever.  
  
He sat her down on the table where Mara had put the first-aid things. She didn't have her bearings yet, and slumped foreward, leaning her head on Luke's shoulder. She stiffened, and put a hand to the side of his face. Luke thought about his old, resurfaced memory, while Anakin remembered his dream from the previous night.  
  
"Papa?" the girl guessed, her voice little more than a whisper. "But where's your mask?" She was silent for a moment, and before Luke could speak, she put her other hand up to his face, and smiled. Her voice gave away how tired she was. "Luke! You're safe! I was so afraid something was going to happen to you. But you're so much older... How long was I...?"  
  
"Decades." Luke answered.  
  
"Wow. I mean, I know Ben said I sleep too much, but this is rediculous." she muttered to herself.  
  
Luke gave a small smile. "It's alright, you're perfectly safe here. You need to rest. You can catch up on everything that's happened in the time you were suspended after you've recovered." 


	8. Hit my head on a branch of the family tr...

(Wow. It's been a really long time since I updated this. Never got around to moving it to my own website, though. The only reason I'm updating this is because so many people seem to be running loops, "Who is she? Where did she come from? How does she fit in with all of this?" Well, I'm sick, so I have time to write right now. Lucky you, and lucky me, I get to torture you with another chapter, MWUAHahahahaaaaa! For reference, Nikki is pronounced like normal, but her full name is pronounced 'Neek-o-lie-ary Moor-ronda.' Hope this finds everyone well, and I hope everyone finds this chapter to be just as good, or better then the last, though I guess it could be called 'J.K. Rowling syndrome,' writing something amazingly excelent, and then having people wanting more, and better, and praying you'll be up to the challenge. Well, God willing....)  
  
Chapter 7 (As if I could top 5 & 6!)  
  
After Nikki had fallen asleep on the medical gurney, covered in several self-heating blankets, Mara and Anakin had gone to lunch, leaving Luke to sit with her, in case she woke up.  
  
Luke sat down on the edge of the gurney, and leaned over her, studying the young face he had known his entire life.   
  
"Who are you?" he whispered, too low, even for him to hear.  
  
She breathed heavily, and turned over on her side. He slid off the edge of the gurney, half sitting, half kneeling on the floor. He brushed a stray lock of damp, dark hair away from her face. "Ben... I wanna go home... I want my family back togeth..."  
  
She was not quite talking in her sleep, more of a musing aloud. Luke wondered for a moment if he would be able to hear her without being a Jedi. Probably not. "... Ben.. wanna go back.. he won't follow... Ben, let go... no choice.."  
  
"Nikki?" Luke hoped talking to her while she was asleep might help her get into a better dream, or at least memory, that would let her rest easier. "Nikki, do you hear me?"  
  
"... I can hear... I know you're there... can't find.. where's the...?"   
  
"Nikki, it's alright now, everyone is just fine. You need to rest now."  
  
*()*()*()*  
  
"So who do you think this girl is?"  
  
"I'm not quite sure." Anakin answered. "I mean, I have an idea, but I'm probably wrong anyway, so it doesn't really matter. Why, who do you think she is?"  
  
Mara shrugged. "A friend of Anakin Skywalker's? Maybe even Luke's mother, your grandmother. I don't know. She does look like a blood-relative."  
  
Anakin pulled Vader's journal out of his flight suit, and put it down on the table. Mara picked it up. "What's this?"  
  
"Vader's personal journal. I found it in his rooms at Bast Castle. He was looking for an eight-year-old girl named Nikki, and said that she was given growth enhancers to keep him from finding her, and when he did find her, she was much older then she should've been. He doesn't say much about who she is, but that Obi-Wan taught her to hate him, and he swears to kill him for it."  
  
Mara began leafing through the synth-paper pages. "Sloppy handwriting..." she muttered.  
  
She stopped suddenly, close to the back of the book, much further then Anakin had read. "What is it?"  
  
"A list of names and dates. Looks like a family tree. Look at this, Anakin Skywalker, his mother, Shmi Skywalker, no father listed for him, but a step-father... Lars?"  
  
Anakin half-stood to see better, but it wasn't the Lars branch that caught his eye. "Look, that's where Uncle Luke and my mom should be."  
  
In place of Luke and Leia's names were the words 'Nikkolayari Moorronda Skywalker,' and 'Unknown.'  
  
(Stay tuned! Already writing the next chapter, which will be mostly be compiled flash-backs.) 


End file.
